Local government capacities enhanced through public-private partnerships in the Philippines

A partnership of four organizations and three donors is working to enhance the disaster risk reduction capacities of local government units (LGUs) in the Philippines. The National Resilience Council, Ateneo de Manila University, Manila Observatory and Zuellig Family Foundation are collaborating to implement the voluntary commitment “Building Resilient Local Government Systems in the Philippines.”

This commitment showcases an example of collaboration between government, the private sector, academia and civil society, fostering public-private partnerships (PPPs) informed by evidence from science & technology. The commitment also displays coherence across agendas, as it is aligned with national legislation and global instruments such as the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, the New Urban Agenda and the Sendai Framework.

The commitment plans to achieve its objective by executing training programs, securing PPPs and implementing a resilience scorecard for LGUs. Programs foster leadership for resilience with several tracks, modules and phases. Good coordination increases the effectiveness of invested efforts in terms of the scale of beneficiaries, secured resources and quality of contents.

The Sendai Framework Voluntary Commitments (SFVC) online platform allows stakeholders to inform the public about their work on DRR. The SFVC online platform is a useful tool to know who is doing what and where for the implementation of the Sendai Framework, which could foster potential collaboration among stakeholders. All stakeholders (private sector, civil society organizations, academia, media, local governments, etc.) working on DRR can submit their commitments and report on their progress and deliverables. Good practices and achievements will be highlighted through the online platform.